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Saturday, March 28, 2015

2012; 287 pages. Book One
(out of 3) in The Last Dragonslayer series New Author? : No. Genre : YA; Fantasy. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

Lately,
magic has been getting rather scarce in the Ununited Kingdoms. Sure, there are still sorcerers around, but
instead of conjuring up storms and moving mountains, they’ve been reduced to
(magically) unclogging drains, rewiring houses, and eradicating moles from
lawns. And just like a dying battery,
every use of magic seems to drain the pool of it some more.

Even worse, the last dragon, Maltcassion, is rumored to be old and
dying. And some say that when he dies,
there will be no more magic at all.

Meanwhile, at the Kazam Mystical Arts Management, young Jennifer Strange
is still quite busy. Not doing magic, of
course; Jennifer’s been tested, and she’s got no talent for that. But even sorcerers have bills to pay, and
someone has to take care of the business end of magic-for-hire.

And someone needs to take care of a bunch of fading, pouting
wizards. At least until the magic runs
out.

What’s To Like...

The Last Dragonslayer is Jasper Fforde’s first foray into YA
fantasy. I have high expectations of
anything Forde writes, and, as always, he does not disappoint.

There are a bunch of outstanding characters
to get acquainted with. The
magic-weavers that our protagonist, Jennifer, has to deal with, are a
fascinating and varied group – a storm conjuror (at least she used to be able to do this),
one that communicates on a subconscious level, a beguiler, and a pre-cognitive (he can predict the future, but it's usually useless),
among others. Oooh, and don’t forget the
Quarkbeast, the dragon Maltcassion, and Hector the Transient Moose. They’re all
delightful.

This
is YA literature, so everything is 100% clean – no sex, no drugs, no booze,
etc. Jennifer Strange may be coming of
age, but there’s no romance (at least in this book), which is a refreshing
change of pace for a YA fantasy offering with a teenage female lead.

The
plotline is not particularly twisty, but the pacing is quick, and young readers
won’t get bored at all. There are
some serious themes to muse upon as well – the senselessness of war, the role
of business in promoting war, and the power of propaganda to seduce people into
accepting a war mentality. The ending is
superb.

It’s not a good
idea to have civilians around when sorcery is afoot. Even the stoutest incantations carry
redundant strands of spell that can cause havoc if allowed to settle on the
general public. Nothing serious ever
happened; it was mostly rapid nose hair growth, oinking like a pig, blue pee,
that sort of stuff. It soon wore off,
but it was bad for business. (loc.
109)

“He called me Gwanjii.”

“Ah,” replied
Feldspar solemnly, “that is an old dragon word.
A word that one dragon might use to another perhaps twice in his
lifetime.”

“What does it
mean?”

“Friend.”(loc. 2524)

Kindle Details...

The Last Dragonslayer sells for $2.24 at Amazon, which frankly is a
fantastic price for a Jasper Fforde novel, even if it is YA. The rest of his books fall in the $6.15-$12.18
range..

Working with those versed in the Mystical Arts was sometimes like
trying to knit with wet spaghetti: just when you thought you’d gotten
somewhere, it all came to pieces in your hands. (loc. 54)

The
quibbles are few. Once again, methane
gas is presented as having a disagreeable odor.
Folks, methane is odorless. Yes,
natural gas is methane, and it stinks.
But that’s because municipalities add a small amount of mercaptan to it
so people can detect gas leaks.

The
resolution of Gordon, the apprentice dragonslayer, felt rushed and rather unbelievable. He was quite the clever one, yet committed an
elementary blunder.

Finally, there are a bunch of loose threads that never get tied up, but
I suspect these will be addressed as the series rolls along.

8 Stars. I enjoyed The
Last Dragonslayer, despite not being the target audience, and it
satisfied my Jasper Fforde thirst without me having to reread one of his earlier books. Add ½ star if
you are a young adult reader who likes to read Fantasy, cuz this is going to be
right down your alley.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

In
Roman-ruled, 2nd-century Britannia, the natives are restless. A legionnaire has been murdered,
and they fear that the Roman army commander will once again pin the blame on a local,
whether it is true or not.

The Romans are happy of oblige, and finding a suspect is an easy
matter. There’s enough circumstantial
evidence to execute one of the local troublemakers for the crime. But the garrison's own (Roman) medical doctor
is also confessing to the crime, which complicates matters.

Then there’s the visiting medicus, Gaius Petreius Ruso, a naïve
do-gooder who doesn’t believe either one of the suspects did it. He changes his mind often as to who he thinks
the murderer is, and admittedly has no evidence against any of them. He’ll mess everything up with his meddling.

And wouldn’t you know it, he’s our protagonist.

What’s To Like...

Terra Incognitais the second book of Ruth
Downie’s 6-book (so far) series, and once again is a pleasant combination of
Historical Fiction and Murder Mystery. Tilla
is still Ruso’s slave, although that status becomes rather iffy now that they
are among Tilla’s people at the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire.

The
Historical Fiction is a mixed bag. On
one hand, you have anachronisms such as candles, women’s underwear, and
expressions such as “Right-oh” and “Fellers”.
On the other, there is an unusual and fascinating feeling if living in the hinterlands of a Roman Empire stretched
woefully thin, with the restless Britons ready to do some pushing
back.

The
Murder Mystery is also mixed. It’s a
Police Procedural, which I always like, with lots of slimeballs, malcontents,
and good-but-suspicious characters to investigate. Ruso eventually susses out the perp, but
lacks any proof. The ending is average. I kept waiting for a “twist” but
none was forthcoming, and the events leading up to the culprit’s confession called for considerable suspension of belief.

But it’s the wit and humor that make Terra Incognita an entertaining
read. Things such as the bedbugs at the
Golden Fleece Inn and Doctor Ruso’s Special Love Potion will have you chuckling chapter after chapter. There’s also some
romance, some jealousy, and the more serious topic of drug addiction to balance
the levity.

This is both a standalone novel and a key book in a series. A lot of Tilla’s background gets filled in,
and her relationship with Ruso takes a significant turn. There are lots of new characters to meet, a
bunch of old ones from Medicusto greet, plus a handy Cast of Characters in the front should you get confused. The Epilogue is a particularly compelling way to close out the book.

Kewlest New Word...

Dozy(adj.)
: stupid (a Britishism)

Others : Fug(n.).

Excerpts...

“When you think
about it, we’re all foreigners here.
Except the Britons, of course.”

“You know what I
mean. Troops who are used to those sorts
of conditions. The sort of chap who
tramps bare chested through bogs and picks his teeth with a knife. They bring them in from Germania, or Gaul, or
somewhere.”

“I’m from Gaul,”
Ruso reminded him.

“Yes, but you’re
from the warm end. You’re practically
one of us.” This was evidently intended
as a compliment. (loc.
228)

“I’m trying to
get the beer drinking under control here.”

“Really? Gambax told me you and he had a drink
together when you first got here. Then
you asked specially to be put in the room with the barrel. I hope you’re not falling into bad ways,
Ruso. Beer’s not good for you, you
know. Bad for the membranes, makes you
bulge, and produces flatulence.
Dioscorides says so.”

“Then why are you
drinking it?”

“To be sociable,
of course.”(loc. 4689)

Kindle Details...

Terra
Incognitasells for $9.59 at Amazon. The other Medicus books range in price from $7.55 to $9.99. The first novel is no longer a steal at
$1.99.

“There was no fun in teasing Albanus. It was like poking a kitten with a stick.” (loc. 482)

This
is the fifth book I’ve read in this series (I'm not reading them in order), and I’ve made my peace with the
historical anachronisms and modern lingo therein They enhance the “feel” of the setting, and
contribute to the wit.

My only issue with Terra Incognita concerns
“Stagman”, the local leader who’s stirring up the restive Britons with dreams
of freedom. This is a fascinating point in Anglo-Roman history, one of the few times the Empire decided that further conquest was too costly; and Ruth Downie develops this scenario nicely. Alas, this thread is left unresolved, both
here and in the subsequent books.

This is apparently deliberate on the author’s part, as indicated in her
Afterword. But the reader is left
hanging when nothing comes of it. Oh well, one can always hope for Stagman to show up again sometime later in the series.

8 Stars. Don’t let my quibbling deter you from reading these books. This is a fun and entertaining series, and
I’ll be reading the one remaining book, Persona Non
Grata, just as soon as I can borrow it from my local library.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

It must’ve been love at first sight. Anastasia Steele fell head-over-heels when
she met Christian Grey. Actually, she
tripped and fell flat on her face as she entered the room to interview him, but
that’s pretty much the same thing, right?

And
it apparently worked because Christian obviously became very interested in her
– finding ways for them to cross paths, etc.
Yet he’s also warned Anastasia to stay away from him, because he has a
darker side that she might not like.

But
our protagonists are smitten with each other.
And that’s pretty much the same thing as being in love, right?

What’s To Like...

Fifty Shades of
Grey is both a piece of Erotic Fiction and a Romance novel, and it
delivers in both categories. The erotic
parts are plentiful and, well, erotic.
However, this is not smut. Things
get kinky, but there’s nothing hardcore here – stuff like bestiality,
excrement, disfigurement, orgies, etc, What
is present is … well, I’ll let you read the book to find out.

Our two protagonists are frankly stereotypical and over-the-top. Christian is infinitely rich, incredibly
handsome, and, as in any piece of Romance fiction, a tireless stud. Yet he feeds the poor in Darfur, and always
wears a condom. Anastasia is a senior in
college, strikingly pretty, intelligent, yet has somehow managed to stay a
virgin, more by chance than by choice.
Indeed, she’s never even kissed a guy, so she’s an orgasm waiting to explode.

Yet
Fifty Shades of Grey is a
Romance too. Not every page is steaming with
sex. The rolling-in-the-hay episodes are
balanced by going to dinners, helicopter rides, a graduation ceremony, flying
in a glider, and meeting the crazies in each other’s family.
The POV is first-person, Ana’s, but E.L. James cleverly works
Christian’s thoughts into the story via e-mail exchanges. Ana has lots of conversations with her “inner
goddess” and “subconscious”. Think of
them as the “little devil” and “little angel” from those cartoons you watched
as a kid.

The
supporting characters are less stereotyped, adequately developed, and
interesting. I especially liked Taylor,
the chauffeur. The story ends at a
significant and logical point, but obviously everything is not tied up, since
there are two more books to go. Needless
to say, this is a book for mature audiences only.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Profligate (adj.)
: recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources.

Others
: Concupiscent (adj.).

Excerpts...

“First, the
technology to track cell phones is available over the Internet. Second, my company does not invest or
manufacture any kind of surveillance devices.
And third, if I hadn’t come to get you, you’d probably be waking up in
the photographer’s bed, and from what I can remember you weren’t overly
enthused about him pressing his suit,” he says acidly.

Pressing his suit! I glance up at Christian. He’s glaring at me, eyes blazing,
aggrieved. I try to bite my lip, but I
fail to repress my giggle.

“Which medieval
chronicle did you escape from? You sound
like a courtly knight.”(pg. 67)

“You’re a
sadist?”

“I’m a
Dominant.” His eyes are scorching gray,
intense.

“What does that
mean?” I whisper.

“It means I want
you to willingly surrender yourself to me, in all things.”

I frown at him as
I try to assimilate this idea.

“Why would I do
that?”

“To please me,”
he whispers as he cocks his head to one side, and I see a ghost of a smile. (pg. 100)

I’m going to Seattle by
helicopter with Christian Grey. And he
wants to bite my lip. (pg. 75)

Fifty Shades of
Grey gets regularly blasted for its poor writing, and there is some
merit to that, especially in its irritatingly repetition of a slew of clichés,
among which are: faces “flushing”, eyes “rolling”, habitual lip “biting”, heads
being cocked, brows being furrowed, Anastasia forgetting to breathe, and electrical "touching".

But
here are some startling figures regarding this book. Over 30,000 people have reviewed it on
Amazon. Over 68,000 people have reviewed
it on Goodreads. More than 1 million
people have rated it on Goodreads.
That’s a lot of people taking time to read it and then being inspired enough to give their opinions about it.

The truth is, the writing may be mediocre, but the storytelling
is superb. This isn’t the literary porn
usually spawned by Erotic Fiction writers (think Penthouse Forum).
It’s about a Dominant-Submissive relationship where the “Sub” can get
positively uppity at times. From the
Romance aspect, we know that the relationship will go on for two more books –
Ana championing “Love”, Christian championing “Lust”. But whether the two will ultimately live
happily ever after is very much up in the air.

E.L.
James has succeeded overwhelmingly in writing a provocative book/trilogy that
resonates with female Romance readers who are not of the “vanilla sex for me only, please”
persuasion. As a male reader, I found
the book dragged at times, especially the long conversations Ana has with her
inner goddess and subconscious about love, passion, romance, and commitment. But I recognize such musings are an integral part of any Romance, which is why I avoid reading the genre as much as I can.

7 Stars.
This is a “male rating”. Add one star
if you’re female, another star if you’re hooked
on reading love stories, and a third star if
“vanilla” just isn’t an exciting-enough flavor for you.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

The
paying passengers won’t like it, but Oatsie Manglehand can’t just leave him lying there. The poor lad is unconscious, his
clothes are shredded, and he’s bleeding to death from huge scratches all over
his body.

There
isn’t time for the Grasstrail Train to stop and bury the dying soul. But there is time to pick him up and just dump him
on the doorstep of the nearby Cloister of Saint Glinda. It would take a miracle to save him, but at
least the maunts there can facilitate things by praying him into the next
world.

But
the eldest of the maunts vaguely remember the young man, from his stay there many
years ago. He was just a boy back then, and was in the company of a witch. A very special witch. Elphaba.
There were rumors, never verified, that she was his mother. And he had a name, which one of the maunts remembers after much deliberation.

Liir.

What’s To Like...

Son of a Witch is the sequel to Gregory Maguire’s
best-seller, Wicked (reviewed here). Liir, a minor character (IIRC) in the first book, now takes center stage. For a while, the chapters bounce around
between Liir in the present (a young man), flashbacks of his life immediately following Wicked, and a couple of maunts (“nuns”)investigating some mutilation killings, albeit with some understandable trepidation.

The characters are a pleasant mix of holdovers from the first book
(mostly in the flashbacks) and new beasts, Beasts, and beings. The book is well-written, and is a
vocabularian’s delight. The author
offers some pithy insights on Religion, Politics, War, Ethics, Animal Rights,
and Prophecy; and the interconnection of all of them.

For quite a while the pacing is poor and the storyline meanders
aimlessly along. But if you stick it out
until 62%-Kindle - which is when the flashbacks end and everything thereafter proceeds linearly forward –the action picks up and the storyline comes into focus. The ending is particularly strong.

There is a lot of R-Rated stuff: adult language, masturbation, gay sex,
and “forced” straight sex. I suppose
this is because Maguire is trying to tell a darker version of the Wizard of Oz
tale, but frankly it felt awkward and unnecessary. OTOH, Wicked
was equally “R”, and that was a smashing success, so maybe it’s just me.

For
the most part, SoaW was a plodding and somewhat
confusing read for me – partly due to the aforementioned pacing, partly due to
the fact that it had no reference point (Book 1has The Wizard of Oz), and partly due to a 6-year
personal reading gap between Wicked
and Son Of A Witch. There were characters to recall, and
specialized “Ozzian” parlance (maunts, Quadlings, menaciers, animals/Animals, etc.)
to fathom out again. A bare-bones
backstory is inserted around 4%-Kindle, via one of the maunt’s musings, but
things would’ve gone smoother with a glossary/appendix or two.

He’d left the
unionist mauntery too young to absorb any of the tenets of faith that supported
the cloistered way of life. From the
distance of a skeptical adolescent, unionism seemed like a thicket of
contradictions. Charity to all, but
intolerance toward the heathen. Poverty
ennobles, but the Bishops had to be richer than everyone else. The Unnamed God made the good world,
imprisoning the rebellious human being within it, and taunting humankind with
tinderbox sexuality that must be guarded against at all odds. (loc. 499)

“I can’t be in
danger here. Look, what? Are the very elm leaves going to wreathe up
by magic and smother me?”

“Something
attacked you six weeks ago, and for a reason,” she reminded him.

“I had a flying
broom. Of all things. No reason more than that.”

“You had the
power to fly on it, too.”

“An ant has the
power to wander aboard an eagle.” (loc.
3400)

Kindle Details...

Son
of a Witch sells for $3.99 at Amazon. The other three books in the series are in
the $4.99-8.00
price range. Gregory Maguire has another
dozen or so books available for the Kindle, the majority of which have a
“Fractured Fairy Tale” motif, in the $1.99-$8.99 range.

“The world is the womb now, and the Afterlife waits for one to be
born into it.” (loc.
294)

At
its core, Son of a Witch is a story about a small-yet-tenacious
uprising against the Emperor, that started with Elphaba and is helped along by
Liir. If you keep that in mind while
reading the book, the plotline will seem a lot less disjointed.

If
you read SoaW as a coming-of-age story about
Liir, you’ll find it to be a slow, and oftentimes an aimless slog. Liir visits a prison (Southstairs), attends a
bird conference, and peels a ton of potatoes in the Home Guard. Yawn.

It’s even worse if (as I did) you thought you'd be reading a “Looking for Nor” adventure story.
You will be chasing a chimera, because Nor is nothing more than a
literary MacGuffin here.

So it is not surprising that the book left me feeling a bit underwhelmed. Upon reflection, however, it dawned on me that I had approached it wrong. This is a series about a rebellion. Nor may or may not ever show up again.

7 Stars. The strength of Gregory Maguire’s writing is
countered by the not-very-focused storytelling. The next book in the series, A Lion Among Men, is on my TBR shelf, and I will read it with a different expectation. Add 1 star if you read this book for the sedition, not
for the seeking.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

2011; 242 pages. Full Title : Finding Clarity: A Mom, A Dwarf, and a Posh
Private School in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Contemporary Humor; Mystery. Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

Clarissa
“Clari” Drake’s career as a cute television reporter is pretty much over,
thanks to two kids, eighty pounds, and an embarrassing video that went
viral. But she has a loving husband and
two adorable kids, Zachary and Zeppo, so life in Berkeley, California – or, as
some natives call it, Berzerkeley - is good.

Zach has a rare condition called achondroplasia, which is a fancy word
for dwarfism, and kids in school can be kinda mean. So Clari enrolls him in a posh private school in Berkeley called Bidwell-Coggin, where, surprisingly, he's accepted among his fellow students and thrives .

But something is fishy in the school board at B-C, and when the kindly old headmaster gets unceremoniously booted out, Clari’s investigative
reporting instincts come out of hibernation, itching for some
exercise. Now if she can just find a
couple of allies to help her with her snooping.

What’s To Like...

The book’s subtitle lets you know that there is humor inside, and I
personally found it to be a kind of “mild Erma Bombeck” variety – warm, wacky, family-oriented,
and witty. The POV is first-person,
which is also in the Bombeck style. The
protagonist, Clari, is overweight, “sagging” (her word, not mine), with way
too much cellulite. I like it when the
hero isn’t picture-perfect.

Clari’s
three co-conspirators (they call themselves the Ice Pick 4) are an eclectic blend of social and racial political correctness.
There’s the aging Earth Mother (Elspeth),
the gay Hispanic (Carlos), and the
angry black woman (Sydney), plus a Goth
“fringe member” (Julian). You’re treated to a couple more minorities
via the bad guys, but it would be a spoiler to give details. OTOH, every other character seems to get lumped into a
single, stereotyped category – spoiled, rich, pretentious, Northern California snobs.

There
is some R-rated language. While it
didn’t offend me, it did feel clunky and unnecessary. Erma didn’t need cusswords to be
effective. And while the humor and writing
style were both good, the pacing was extremely slow. At 50% (Kindle),
I was still wondering whether a storyline existed, let alone whether it was
going anywhere.

Nevertheless, for the most part, the ending ties things up
adequately. Finding
Clarity is a standalone novel and, while it is conceivable that a sequel
or series could arise, I would be surprised if that happened.

Kewlest New Word...

Bilious(adj.)
: affected by, or associated with nausea or vomiting.

Others : Walleye(n.); Gnocchi(adj., and used way too often)

Excerpts...

“He didn’t say
anything else?”

“Clari, let it
go,” Andy advised from the edge of the daybed, where he was now seated, holding
Zeppo upside down in a headstand.

“There were some
platitudes,” Zach continued in his tiny adult manner. “But nothing of substance.” I pulled my head back an inch and pursed my
mouth.

“Platitudes,
huh?” Lord love a duck, I didn’t know
where he came up with those phrases.

“But not to be
confused with plongitudes,” Zeppo shrieked through his giggles.(loc. 640)

It was common
knowledge that Sonya had always wanted to be on the Board and that Dick DeNutti
blocked her each time she tried. So, I
got that she was a bored, rich, roving cliché in need of some putty to fill her
psychic holes. And I got that she was
rail thin and attractive and probably wore really nice underwear. I got all that. But eeeewwwww,
John Thomas Mueskes? What, was she
kidding?(loc. 1655)

Kindle Details...

Finding
Clarity sells for $3.99 at Amazon. At present, it is the only full-length novel
that Laura Novak has available there.

“What kind of four-year-old uses the word bilious?” (loc.
927)

Alas,
Finding Clarity is also touted as a mystery
novel, and it is here that the book really disappoints. First of all, the crime – school board
hijinks – is by nature boring. No
murders, no kidnapping, no thefts; just underhanded
business dealings.

Second, there are too many WTF’s.
The suspected bad guy keeps incriminating papers lying around in his bathroom. To boot, when Clari absconds with them, he
apparently doesn’t miss them. And Mrs.
Bad Guy can’t seem to remember seeing Clari’s face, even though they keep bumping into each other in all sorts of important times and places.

The resolution of the mystery is equally unsatisfying. The suspicious business deal seems fraudulent
at first, but when Clari perceives it will extend the time that Zachary doesn’t
have to go to public school, she’s all for it.
As for the alleged sexual shenanigans and their cover-up, Clari concludes it is
all a shakedown by the so-called victims.

Okay fine. In the end a couple
careers are ruined, a couple secrets are aired, but nothing morally or
criminally wrong is uncovered. Frankly,
Clari comes off to me as a meddling b*tch, or , in the words of her son, "a shit
disturber".

5½ Stars. As a piece of humorous commentary, Finding Clarity is an okay read, and that’s what I
picked it up for. Subtract 1½ stars if you
were looking for a Janet Evanovich-type mystery.